Lava lamp alternates from flowing to clump and back

Hi,

I have a vintage lava lamp that will start flowing after a couple of hours, but after about an hour of flowing, will form a clump around the bottom of the lamp.. I notice that it is attached to only about 1/4 of the coil. After about half an hour, it will flow again, and then alternate back to the clump. I have tried swirling the lamp when it's in a clump and it works for awhile but will go back to the clump that is partially attached to the coil. So my question is, is this from overheating or something with the coil itself?

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Carol on July 21, 2015 at 7:25am

If it's overheating the whole blob of lava usually will detach from the coil and hover at the top.....when it starts overheating it will send small globules up at first but sometimes the whole darn thing will detach. I had a lamp like that and I would probably say it's a coil issue. Not sure though without hearing some history of the lamp. Is it a goo kit? LL? or did you make your own lava?

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Permalink Reply by James Ko on July 21, 2015 at 9:01am

Ohh I see.. For mine, the lava will hover more at the bottom. Last night it formed globules that didn't attach to the coil. I ended up cleaning the coil to see if that would help. It did, but I ended up having a huge globule with air bubbles in it that would float at the top! I am going to try again tonight to see if those air bubbles disappear and the lava will come back to the bottom again. It is a vintage lava lamp from LL in the 1980's. Also, for your lamp that was doing the same thing, did you end up replacing your coil or just cleaning it.

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Permalink Reply by Carol on July 21, 2015 at 4:09pm

I did use the same coil, but threw in a make shift coil that I made out of washing machine lint screening. I'll post a pic of them if I can find the thread. Some have used jewelry coil to make coils. You need to use stainless steel or rust will get into your lava.